The Small Business Capital Journey

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Hello and welcome back to our third annual SBA Innovation Ecosystem Summit. Thank you for being here with us today. My name is Jamila Corbin and I'm here to guide you through the day. Our next session is all about the small business capital journey. You're going to leave this session with up to date information on reforms, policies, policy, pilots, capital and other resources available to best advise small businesses along their respective capital journeys. Leading this discussion is Shailee Hallway, senior advisor at the sba. With that said, Shailee, thank you for joining us and take us away.

Thank you, Jamila and hello. Hello everybody. Good afternoon and welcome to today's panel discussion on the small business capital journey. My name is Shaile Hallway and I am with the US Small Business Administration. And my goal for today's session is that you will learn about at least three new resources that you can share with the entrepreneurs that you work with to help them along their capital journey. I'd like to kick us off by welcoming our panelists and asking them to introduce themselves and also to please share why your perspective is relevant to the small business capital journey. So I'll start with Dede Zuckerberg.

Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here. Hi everyone, my name is Dede Zucker. I'm a chief advisor at the US Patent and Trademark Office. I won't go into, we're going to get into it a little more but your ip, your patents, your trademarks can really help you. Your business as you're starting it, as you're growing it, it help you with your capital and your funding. So I'm excited to talk more.

Fabulous. Thank you Deedee. We're so thrilled to have you joining us today. And now I will pass it over to Mary Grove.

Thank you so much Shaylee and hi everybody. Absolutely honored to join you today for this great conversation. My name is Mary Grove. I am managing partner at Bread and Butter Ventures. We are a seed stage venture firm based here in Minneapolis, investing all across the country. My background and perspective I bring. I come from a very scrappy immigrant entrepreneur family. My parents immigrated from Thailand and ran small businesses together for over 35 years. I was lucky to grow up with that foundation and I've spent the last 20 years working in tech and early stage investing. So 15 years at Google helping work on a variety of product partnerships, go to market expansion and I built the Google for Startups organization. There was a partner investment partner at Revolution on the rise of the RAS seed fund. Investing and innovation happening all across the country outside of core coastal hubs. And today I help run our firm, Bread and Butter Ventures, investing in what we call the bread and butter sectors of the modern economy. So specifically healthcare, food, tech and enterprise SaaS. I'm thrilled to be with you. Very, very passionate about working with small businesses and entrepreneurs who I truly believe are the economic backbone of our economic development, and so excited for the conversation.

Fabulous. I have to tell you, I am so thrilled to have the opportunity to be speaking with two such accomplished women today. I'll jump in here and I'll share a little bit of my background as well. I'm a senior Advisor in the SBA's Office of Investment and Innovation, and we are responsible for two programs that are relevant to the small business capital journey. So the first is FBIR sttr, and if you were at this summit yesterday, you heard about it during a session yesterday. These programs delivered three and a half billion dollars of funding annually via 11 participating federal agencies. And those funds are delivered to small businesses and startups to help them support them in conducting research and development. The second program in our office that's relevant to today's discussion is the sbic, or the Small Business Investment Company Program, which provides a capital match to private dollars raised by fund managers who are investing in small businesses and startups throughout the United States. Those are the two programs in our office that I wanted to highlight at the sba. But there is a third one. I'm going to give you a bonus program which is just an SBA program. In our Office of Capital Access, we have the 7A working capital and 504 real estate loan programs that are guaranteed by the Small Business Administration. So that's a little bit about my intersection with capital access. And I'd really love to start off today's discussion by helping the audience understand how each of you intersect with capital Access. And I would love to start with you, Didi, because coming from the U.S. patent and Trademark Office, I think that your point of view might be a little bit less intuitive to this audience, but quite critical. So would love to hear, Didi, how you support startups as they are considering accessing capital at uspto.

Thanks, Shailey. So agreed, as I didn't want to go fully into it in the intro because it's not quite as simple or as honestly as impressive as Mary's background. But one big thing that we have is we've launched our Women's Entrepreneur Entrepreneurship Symposium. It's a series of events. We do one a month. We call them our We Wednesdays and They're targeted for entrepreneurs and we hit different topics. So. So we've done specific ones on funding and this was started at the request of the Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo. Our under Secretary and director Kathy Vidal leads them and organizes them. We've been doing them for a whole year now. I'd encourage you to check out our website because we record all of our sessions and we've had specific ones focused on funding. As a fee based agency, we do not have the ability to provide capital or funds or grants to anyone. But through these events we're trying to connect people with other government resources and and other information and groups that can support them. But where we really connect on supporting the capital is by granting the patents and registering the trademarks. I don't think it occurs to people that those are assets and have value, but they are you can use if you have a patent or a trademark, those can be used as collateral when you are looking for loans. Specifically if the data shows that if you have a patent you are the likelihood of your business securing funding from a VC over the next three years. If you have a patent it increases your likelihood by 47% so you're looking at a much higher rate of success there. And then if you're looking at loans you can lose them as use them as collateral, it increases your likelihood to 76%. So securing those things, they might not occur to you. You might think that that's something you don't need to do right away or that's a future problem. But you should really be thinking about it early because it can, it is an asset. It can help you start and grow your business.

That's phenomenal and quite frankly Dede, that's not something I knew very much about. Where can folks who are let's say I'm a innovative startup founder and I'm looking to better understand how I can leverage my intellectual property in order to secure a loan. Where can I go to find more information about that?

I would suggest connecting through. If you go to our Women's entrepreneurship happy to provide the link to our event site. It not only accesses you to old events or previous events that you can view and we sort of walk through that. But we also have trainings and we have connections and different resources and things that can help sort of walk you through what that process looks like.

That fabulous. We'd definitely love to share out those resources. Mary, I'm going to pivot over to you. So you are coming at this from the perspective of a private investor. Can you bring to life for us what it looks like for a startup to go out and get venture capital funding. Like how, if I'm, if I'm an entrepreneur, like how do I even begin that process?

That's a terrific question. Absolutely. I think that I can sort of walk you through a quick five, five step process that I would say. And these are, you know, I think it varies by company but as a norm I would start with, you know, step one is really understand your North Star as a business and what, what's the mission, what's your differentiation and really what type of business are you endeavoring to build? And by what type of business I mean what are your long term goals in terms of is this a multi generational family business that you want to pass down? Is it a business that you want to take public? Is it one that you want to sell and what time frame, sort of understanding the type of business that you're building, your North Star, your mission and really how it differentiates. Step two is then based on that, really decide on the best form of capitalization. I think we'll talk a lot more in this conversation about venture capital, sort of when is that right for me? But assuming that you do decide this is a venture backable business, I want to go down that path. Then step three, as to the good news about building in the current era is there are so many wonderful tech platforms that allow you to really test and launch and prototype quickly and pretty inexpensively. So that step three is going to want to, you're going to want to focus on building your prototype, your product, you know, testing, iterating, getting as much feedback as possible. One of the pitfalls that I see entrepreneurs can sometimes fall into is keeping things super close to the vest for, you know, years and building it really in a vacuum when you want to be out there from day zero, talking with potential customers, potential users, getting feedback and iterating based on that. So that's step three is, is that early prototype sort of MVP or minimum viable product building stage. Then based on that, step four is you want to go out and get your initial capital. And this typically is what we refer to as, you know, an angel round of angel investors or precede round. When we have an idea on paper, we have a strawman of the technology and we're raising on that. I call it raising on the team in the dream. And that's going out to. There are many forms of funding available at this stage as far as angel syndicates, individuals, family offices, you know, I always hesitate to Use the friend, the friends and family term because that assumes that all of us have friends and family who could underwrite that. And so the good news is, you know, we can look more broadly at that pre seed angel landscape and then step four after you've done that would be to go raise around from institutional venture capital investors like myself, like, like our peer funds. And so we've got a ton of resources at Bread and Butter Ventures that we make available to, to the community. So you know, on our website we also have a blog, breadabout adventures.com is our website. But we've tried to open source as much material as we can in terms of templates for pitch decks, templates for how to prep for and run a really tight time bound fundraising process. And.

It looks like Mary might have frozen there for a second. I'm going to pivot over to Deedee Didi. In this sort of step five step process that Mary's describing any of those steps, is that the time when it's appropriate to go seek a patent or is this, does that happen after, like when do you encourage entrepreneurs to begin thinking about that?

Well, you know, I wrote down Mary's reference to your minimum viable product and I think that's an important step at least when it comes to patents. The way our intellectual property, our patent system works here is it's a first to file system. So the first person to file your patent gets rights. That's your line in your sand where you're declaring, this is my invention and this is when I invented it. So I think as soon as you've got that concept, it can't just be an idea. You do need to, you know, reduce to practice, be able to demonstrate it. But I think as soon as you've got I liked Mary's use of minimum vial product. You should be thinking about filing a patent. And it doesn't all have to be perfect. You can we have something called a provisional patent application. It only lasts for one year, but you can file it. It gives you that date, that filing date. So you can sort of write that down, have that as your start point. And it gives you one year from that filing to file your full patent application. So maybe you're not ready, maybe you don't know how to do it all. You can file that provisional and take that year to really figure out either how to do it on your own or to hire an attorney. We also have free services that we provide. We have pro bono, which is free legal counsel. There are certain requirements you have to meet that will help you file your patent application. We also have a law school clinic where you can work with law school students that will file again at no cost, help you file your patent or your trademark. So by getting that provisional patent or getting something, it helps sort of secure your date. And I would imagine when Mary was referring to your minimum viable product, I don't, I'm not going to say that they're the exact same thing, but I think having a patent application is probably a pretty good example of that. I think Mary may be back with us. She wants to chime in.

I'm here. Yes, I think it, you know, it's, it's intellectual property is definitely a core fundamental piece of the value in a business. It really varies widely on what type of business you're developing. So if you're developing, let's say an AI platform in healthcare, that's going to be super, super important. If you're experimenting with a new productivity app for the enterprise workforce, maybe less important. Right. So it really depends on from a venture backability perspective, again down to that question of what's the fundamental differentiation or that secret sauce of the company. And both can be totally viable venture backed paths. But if that is core to what you're, you know, this is our algorithm that completely sets us apart, then we're going to want to think very early on about protecting those assets.

And I'm curious how that conversation actually works in the real world. And examples of potential investments that you've looked at Mary. So like have you ever had a conversation with an entrepreneur where you're like, listen, you need to go get a patent, you need to shore up your intellectual property and then come back to us and then we'll feel more comfortable, comfortable investing? Or is it a conversation around like, okay, we're, we're going to work with you so that you can hit that milestone. Like how, how does that conversation work look in the real world?

So I am a seed stage investor, which means still quite early in the journey that I, in the five step process, I define, I'd be step five. But in the lifelong arc of a business that's raising venture capital, that's still very, very early. And so it's, it's really 50, 50 there. It's, it's less common that a company would come to us and say I have everything, you know, filed, issued, ready to go. And it's more of here's my roadmap, here's my process. A question that we're always asking ourselves internally and with companies directly is this concept of, you know, what is your defensibility or what is the moat people call it? What's the moat that you're building around your business that protects other players from, you know, if, if the company next to me raises $10 million next week, what prevents them with that resource from not building? Exactly what I'm, what I'm building. So that's a big question of it and I think having a plan and we're going through this, this conversation right now with one of our portfolio companies, right, where we're still early stage, which means we're still relatively strapped for cash from a Runway perspective. And the question is we're us based right now, do we go, do we need to go now and file international patents and in what time frame and what are the costs associated with that which are not zero.

Right.

And how do we balance that with, with growth here in the domestic market? So it is totally an ongoing conversation. But we do ask and my view is as long as there is a roadmap in place, right. And Didi has helped demystify that there actually are many more resources to help and even some pro bono in some cases, which I think is a great thing to flag.

Completely agree with you. And I want to make sure too Mary, that we kind of close out that this sort of five step process that you, that you had begun to describe earlier in our conversation with that step five, if I'm an entrepreneur, I'm beginning, I feel like I'm ready to start seeking VC dollars and I want to get into when it is appropriate to seek VC funding as opposed to other forms of funding. But how do I even find a VC firm that is, that could be a good fit for me? Do I, am I literally just going to finding out like googling venture firms in my, that are investing in my industry or my strategy, like what is, what does that actually look like for an entrepreneur?

It's one of the challenging, the most challenging things about venture capital today. And one of our goals to help sort of reimagine some of the infrastructure is it historically has been a very closed network, warm introduction driven business, right. Which is not democratized access to capital. And so working within that constraint while we try to change it. My advice to entrepreneurs is a few things. One, there is a tremendous amount of research that you can do out there. Lists, available resources, you know, from Crunchbase to CB Insights to just, just using Googling, right. And coming up with lists of who invests in my sector, look through their websites, understand a lot of the Upfront work can be done truly just via research. But a second great resource is try to meet companies in your ecosystem or in your sector who have already raised venture capital. And to me as an investor, an introduction from a founder, a fellow founder, is a tremendous signal. Right? It's, it's founders are referring high quality founders to us and that's a big source of our, our deal flow frankly. So talk to founders. You'd be surprised that you know they're, they're super willing to pay it forward because many people help them along the journey as well. Talk to lawyers, other investors who are out of your sector that they added, you know, ask her money, get advice, ask her advice, get, get money. But really don't be afraid to, that's your time to, to really put the idea out there and, and don't be afraid to ask for help even if it's the form of an intro. I noticed on LinkedIn that you're connected to XYZ firm and so doing that upfront we ended up investing, we, we led the round of a seed company, two phenomenal female founders based in Idaho and they did not have a deep venture network and there isn't a ton of venture capital in their ecosystem. And they must have sent out truly hundreds, hundreds of cold outbound emails that were very well targeted to those firms. Right? Deeply thoughtful. Hey Mary, I noticed that you've invested in XYZ that you like the future of work as a category. Here's what we're doing. Here's our ROI metrics. Can we grab 30 minutes of your time? And we ended up co leading that round with another firm who we're actually very close with who had met them via cold email as well. And so kind of a neat story of a lot of it can be done but you have to be extremely proactive and I would encourage understand that it is going to take a lot of shots on goal and please don't be discouraged. It's a, it's a mathematical game of that top of funnel resulting in investment. It's not a reflection of you, your idea per se. It could be a lot of different things and so just cast that net super broad and keep going.

I think those are very, very wise words particularly coming from your seat. I think that that, that certainly means a lot to people. Taking a step, we've been focused a bit on venture here but like taking a step back. I'd love to hear Mary, your perspective on when is venture a good fit and when might it not be a good fit for an entrepreneur that's seeking capital, when might it make more sense for them, for example to avail themselves of the SBA 7 or 504 loans or seek, you know, seek private credit funding, whatever, whatever it might look like. I'm curious if you've ever spoken with entrepreneurs about, I don't know if venture funding is even really the right capital source for you at this stage. Would love to hear your thoughts on that regularly.

Yes, regularly talking about that because I think I love venture capital. That's what I love to do every day. But it is but one very specific, very specific form of capitalizing a business. And it's not better than or worse than other types. It really is about that fit with a type of business. And so understanding the business model of venture capital is where I would start there.

Right.

Which is we as fund managers go out and raise institutional capital from institutional investors, endowments, pension funds, universities, fund of funds, foundations. We're investing their private capital with a promise of hoping to return, you know, exponentially 4x or more in a time frame of 7 to 10 years. So that's the business model of a venture capital firm. Right. And so we, and we participate in the upside and that's how we can, can support the, the firm. That's a very specific thing. Right. Which means that every company we're investing in mathematically we're doing the math on could this company mathematically have a 50-100x return and maybe return the entire fund. It is also great investment because it's mission aligned if it's our sector, most important things first. But from a math perspective. And is that going to happen in the next five to 10 years from a time frame perspective? Because ultimately we are tasked with returning our investors capital. So that's where the tension lies if you understand that model. We know that C stage investing is risky mathematically. We know that not all companies will have that 50 to 100x return. But, but that is the goal with every investment that we're making. It has that potential. So does that align with you as the founder perspective of I'm building a company that I want to be venture backed, meaning the expectation on me is going to be exponential growth year over year. Right in for most software based businesses we're targeting 3x year over year growth every single year with that path to that exponential, the hockey stick growth. Right. And we're expecting, we're hoping for an exit which is two ways. One is to go public and two is to go through M and A and get acquired. Right. And then return capital back to the fund and to your investors and to your employees. And so if that's the model for you, that gets you excited and you think that's the North Star, 100% super exciting. If there are other things to consider, such as I would like to own 100% of my business. Right. I don't want to give up equity to my investors or others. That's where loans, grants, non dilutive forms of capital make tremendous sense. The other use case is I want to build a lifestyle business and that's meant not at all in a condescending way that that means I'm you know, really interested in passing this business on to my children and my grandchildren. And I want it to be 100 year, multi generational business that's not going to have a venture exit in seven to 10 years. Right. So again, understanding the alignment because when you do partner with venture investors, it is a decade long partnership and it's a really deep commitment that isn't right for every business. And so those are some of the frameworks that I use to think through that.

Building off of that, I would be curious to hear from your seat as a venture investor, what are the three to five things that you're looking for when you're looking to invest in, in a startup? So I heard one thing earlier which was you want to ensure that there's a competitive moat, a defensible moat, right. You want to be able to hear why can't what, what makes it so that for example, if another person who looks a lot like you, who's doing a similar strategy were to also get $10 million, why can't they do what you're doing? It also sounds like another criteria is, you know, is this the right form of capital for this business at this time are what, what does their growth trajectory look like and what is the vision for the business? What are the other things that I'm missing?

Great question. Thank you. So first and foremost, most important criteria by a long shot is team in our, in our decision making and we invest again such early stage that we know that the product itself might change, the business model might change, the go to market motion almost certainly will change. And, and if we're investing in the right team with the right vision and skill set, we think there's, there's a home run potential there. So team is the most important two is market, right? Do we like, do we like the market? Do we think that this business has an opportunity to be a market expander, a category creator and not just reorganizing, you know, making more efficient what's in the industry and our work in food tech I would point to for example we are trying to help digitize the world's one of the world's largest supply chains which is largely analog today. And so how do we move that into the digital age so market Third is product and tech. And to your point on you know, what's the defensibility of the business but what's unique we're ultimately tech investors at the end of the day. So there has to be it could be a tech enabled service but what's the heart of that technology? That the product. Why is it unique? Fourth is market timing and that's a really important one we don't talk often about. But are there tailwinds or headwinds for this business from a regulatory perspective, are there things coming down the pike that are like now is the moment because and I invest a lot in healthcare which is regulatory forces are a huge factor there right of we want to get out ahead of it but not too, too early might be ahead of its time. So that's one. And then the last thing which is super important from a bread and butter perspective to our team is are we the right fit for you? Are we uniquely equipped to add value after we invest? If not, if it's just capital. Capital is a commodity that you can get in many places. And so we have passed on tremendous deals that look phenomenal on paper but we're not the right partner because we don't have deep expertise in that vertical or you know, we, we can't make introductions for you from a bizda perspective after we invest. And so being honest and real and transparent about that too. In addition to that, the first question of course of is this the venture is venture the right path for this business?

I love that point around what value can I as the investor bring to your team? And if there isn't strong alignment there, if I don't think that my network, my knowledge is going to be able to add value on top of the capital, then maybe it doesn't make very much sense. I think it's an excellent point. Dede similar question for you but on the patent and trademark side, what characteristics do you think make a technology or an innovation a good fit for seeking a patent and winning a patent as opposed to not sure.

So I think there's certain types of inventions that are going to be patented. Others might be copyright. I know Mary mentioned software. Software specifically is protected through copyrights. We have this excellent tool on our website called the IP Identifier Tool takes you through a series of questions and helps you figure out what you need. Not everybody needs a patent. That is, that is not everybody needs a patent. One thing that I think all businesses need though is a trademark. If you're starting your company, Mary was referring to the moat, which I kind of love. I love that visual. I think a trademark is an important, probably part of your moat. When you're starting your business, you come up with your name, your logo, you know, you're starting to develop this image, this branding. If you are not protecting that, you can lose it. And I met this lovely woman in Florida and she had started this business out of her home. She was having a lot of success. She then had to move, move to a new area of Florida and discovered that another person had the same business with the like it was basically the same thing. And that woman already had a trademark so she had to start again. She had to rename her company this time. She knew she, you know, she got her trademark that time. But those trademark applications are, are not as complicated as a patent application. They're easier to file and they can, you know, as you're starting to build that company and define like who you are, what you are protecting, that's a really important, I think first step to have that written down and have it official. We actually offer really excellent training online and I want to plug our trademark basics programs there. It's an eight week course. It's every Tuesday at 2pm we have one starting January 9th. You tune in and it takes you through the whole process. You can fill out your trademark application while you're on there. They'll refer you to really good resources. And I feel like, you know, a lot of times people are focused on patents and patents are super important and I, that's where my background is, so I'm very partial to them. But again, patents I don't think fit for everyone. And it does take a little time and effort and you've got, you know, writing out your whole invention is very complicated. But when you're starting a business, you're going to want a brand, you're going to want to market and you're going to have a name. And protecting that so others don't take it from you is really important. So that would be my big plug to get started early on that one.

Thank you. I think that's excellent advice. Always, always starting early. Quite important. Wanna take the next 10 minutes that we have here to do two more segments so first Q and A and then after that we're gonna have a lightning finish out with a lightning round. So a few questions we've received from the audience. Dede, first one is for you. How do we access the USPTO Law School students?

So if you I can provide a link that you can distribute. We have on our website, we have access. Our free resources is one of our subpages. And on there you can go we have this fun little map. You can click on your state and it'll list for you our pro bono clinics and where we have our law school clinics. And we've actually been expanding those a lot lately. Our undersecretary has been sending letters out. They do not exist in every state, but we have a lot of them. One thing we're also expanding is our Patent and Trademark Resource centers. Those do not have lawyers that can help you file, but they have a lot of resources and help can help connect you with training. And those are in a lot more locations. So I will certainly provide that link so you guys can find out what's in your state and in your area.

Awesome.

Thank you. Mary, next one is for you. Is there like a list of VCs somewhere that if I'm an entrepreneur looking to see, you know, that's looking to raise venture funding that I can look at any, any resources that you'd recommend people check out.

There are so many lists out there. I was just last night pouring through the digital health. CB Insights did a top 50 digital health startups and they also did a list of most active investors in the category by deal volume. And so industry publications are a great place to go for that. There are other. And some of them are have, you know, free elements and then paid elements. So Crunchbase, for example, is a great, a great resource where I use it a lot for my own research, but it lists startups as well as investors, by firm and by actual specific investor. So that's a good, a good place to start. But I would say industry specific is the name of the game right now. There are many generalist funds out there, but if you're building, you know, a company in agtech or in Women's Health, it won't take you very long. Through searching, you know, Google searching, you'll find these, these lists that media outlets are constantly publishing, updating, refreshing. But I think the best way is actually to again make that list of companies in your space who you admire or you think are good potential partners for you and then go research online who funded them. Right. And that that can start really build. Build your own list from the ground up is my advice. But use some of these resources to figure out how to get there. And it's also important to think about competition. So if you, if you look through a firm's website, see their list of portfolio companies, there are some firms who will make multiple investments in a category. There are some who say, you know, we don't make competitive investments or multiple bets in a single category. Ask yourself how you as the founder would feel about that too, of being part of a portfolio alongside other, you know, maybe direct competitors or adjacent competitors. And that can help you save time up front, on the front end as well by, by doing that simple look through the portfolio and see who else is there.

That is excellent advice. Last question for you here, this one is for Mary. What trends are you seeing in early stage tech? What, what excites you?

So many things I think from a thematic perspective, from a sector perspective, we've got our big three. So from a digital health perspective, our North Star is investing in technologies that democratize access to quality care for all. So super, super interested in the movement, the continued push around tech enabling care delivery, which is a big part of that, democratizing access to people in rural communities, for example, or people with different types of health insurance or no health insurance at all. So that leveling the playing field piece is really interesting. Of course I would be remiss, not to mention AI and its impact across the board. We have several companies in the portfolio, have had AI components from inception, but really, if you were a startup right now, thinking through what is your AI strategy and being able to proactively communicate that even if you're not a core AI business at the core today, just understanding how will it impact me, what's my strategy, Do I want to build something, do I want to partner with someone, do I want to incorporate it at all is a big thing. I'm very interested in the future of work as it's ever evolving, the labor markets in general, but also just ensuring that employees and workers have a happier, healthier, more productive work environment. And then I'd say our food system, climate, sustainability, the future of the food ecosystem is something that we're spending a tremendous amount of time and it's very heartening to see the increased attention and resources being directed into that category. So I could go on, but I'll end there for now.

I love that and I'll share for me personally, that's the future of work and how might we support our employees in being healthy Both physically and mentally, particularly coming out of the pandemic, I think is a real passion area of mine. So I love that you called that one out. Awesome. Five minutes left. Time for our lightning round. So for this segment, I would love for each of you to share one resource that you think entrepreneurs should check out as they're heading into 2024. And DeeDee, I'm going to start with you.

Okay. It's really hard. We have so many awesome resources on our website, but I think the best one for this group is our Inventor and Entrepreneur Resources website. We've called it to try and narrow it down based on sort of categories of things that inventors and entrepreneurs are going to want to know. The IP identifier tool that I mentioned earlier is on there. You can access all of our events. I mentioned the trademark Basics boot camp. We have our free resources page which I mentioned earlier that's going to link you to all sorts of free things that we have. And I will, I failed to mention it earlier, but I did want to plug that. We right now we have for patents, we have an expedited examination program if you're a first time patent filer. So there's certain qualifications that have to be met. But if you're eager to get, if you're ready to file your patent and you're eager to get that process going, we'll actually expedite it at no cost, which is a very cool thing that is available now through the end of February. So if you haven't, you should definitely check that out. So please go on, look at all the great things we offer.

I love that. Mary, over to you.

So I'm going to hit super quick three quick tips. One is a book, a video series and office hours. So the book is called Venture Deals by Brad Feld and Jason Mendelsohn. There are several editions that continually are updated here. But this is the book if you'd like. A very comprehensive resource both for entrepreneurs and investors, really debunking, you know, walking through the entire process, term sheets, terms that you'll find it's a super, super valuable resource. Two is a plug for if video is your preferred format. My partner on the Bread and Butter Fund, Brett Br, has an awesome channel that he's been building putting content out for years. It's called Brett's Brain, Brett's brain on YouTube. And these are quick, you know, two to five minute videos on a specific topic that's super niche. Like what is a liquidation preference in a term sheet or how do I think about valuation or how do I which I spend on marketing in the early days. So a lot of quick nuggets, hundreds of videos, highly recommend. And the third is us, if you'd like to talk with us. We want to be helpful to founders, entrepreneurs and business owners in any way we can. So breadandbutterventures.com is our website. On the website you can actually book office hours with any member of our team. We do open office hours weekly. Whether you want to actually pitch a company, ask for advice, ask for an intro. We want to be that open front door to venture, so would welcome the opportunity to connect.

Well, that is incredibly generous of you, Mary. And we have a lot of entrepreneurial support organizations, folks who work there in the audience right now. And so I think you likely just overwhelmed yourself with inbound as they get out the word to their networks. To close our session, I am going to share the three resources that three of the resources that I learned about in this session that I am personally going to be sharing with the entrepreneurs that I work with. The first one is sharing with entrepreneurs that as they're seeking loans, patents and trademarks are assets that can be used as collateral. That was very interesting. We was certainly not aware of that. Secondly, if you're seeking a patent, the USPTO law students can help you seek those patents and there's incredible resources to be able to make that, that process as frictionless as possible. And then finally, for entrepreneurs who are seeking VC funding, you can look to industry publications to find VCs that fit with your industry. Your strategy Crunchbase is a good example of a resource for that. But I think more importantly just encouraging them to reach out to other founders that are similar to their profile who have recently raised VC dollars and talking with them. Thank you both so much. This has been such a phenomenal session and really appreciate your time today. I'll turn it back to Jamila.

Thank you, Shailey, Dede and Mary. And as we do, let's give our panelists an emoji or a gift. Round of applause for that great conversation. Welcome to our third annual Innovation Ecosystem Summit. Be sure to visit AmericaSeedFund us and check out America's Seed Fund Road Tour in one of SBA's national outreach efforts to connect innovators and entrepreneurs to non dilutive technology funding opportunities provided through the SBIR STTR programs. We're dropping links in the chat so you can register for America Seed Fund Week, the Road Tour Virtual kickoff. Okay everyone, we're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we're going to be discussing equity in entrepreneur ecosystems. I'll see you back here at 1:50pm Eastern.